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Well, tonight we come to a time in our lessons, which I've been really looking forward to. We get to the Synod of Dort. So far in our lessons, we have studied some of the most well-known councils in the history of the Church, including the Council of Nicaea, the Council of Chalcedon, and last week we looked at the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent.
But tonight, we are going to be examining a synod which may not be as well-known to Christians as some others, but certainly still has had a lasting impact. How many of you have ever heard the acronym TULIP in regard to theology?
Typically, TULIP is referred to as the Doctrines of Grace, sometimes also referred to as the Five Points of Calvinism. Well, the foundations of the TULIP, what would later be called the TULIP, were established at the Synod of Dordrecht.
That's the full name. Dordrecht is shortened to Dort because it's easier to say. And so we just call it the Synod of Dort. And tonight, we're going to examine the purpose of the synod and the conclusions which were drawn from it.
And through this lesson, we are going to see that this synod had a profound impact on church history and it solidified the foundations of reformed theology for generations to come. So let us begin our outline with the background of the synod.
The Synod of Dort was held from November the 13th, 1618, to May the 9th, 1619. The synod arose because of the controversy regarding the doctrines of a man by the name of Jacobus Arminius. That is not the next plank on your sheet, though.
I see some of you writing. We'll make sure that you don't write that. That's not on your sheet. But that is a name that we should know. Sometimes he's referred to as James Arminius. Jacobus Arminius is the Latin name.
His actual name is James Hermanson. That was his given name. He was his name was Latinized, which is a very common thing of the time. So when we call him Arminius, Jacobus Arminius, that is his Latinized name.
Though Arminius had been dead for some time, the students of Arminius had taken up his doctrines and were promoting them within the church. That was the reason for the synod. It was basically a synod which had been convened to deal with the teachings of Arminius or what would later be called the Arminians.
Arminius was the student and had been the student of a man by the name of Theodore Beza. Does anyone happen to know just by show of hands who Theodore Beza is? OK, Theodore Beza is an important name from history.
It's important to know Theodore Beza was the successor of Calvin in Geneva. Calvin's church had gone and his school had gone to Beza as his successor. Oftentimes you'll hear people talk about the debate between Calvin and Arminius.
Well, that never happened because Calvin died when Arminius was a young boy. In fact, he was four years old when Calvin died. So if you ever hear somebody tell you, well, the Arminius and Calvin debated, not true.
Calvin's successor, Theodore Beza, was Arminius's teacher. So he really is a second generation student of Calvin. Arminius did rebel against Calvin's teachings and the teachings of his teacher, Theodore Beza.
Arminius had become influenced by Dierich Volkerts zu Kuhnhardt, who himself had been influenced by the humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus. I'll spell that on the board for you. Desiderius Erasmus. Richard knows that name very well.
He has a shirt with that name on it because Erasmus is very famous for one specific quote. What is it, Richard? Yep. He said, if I have money, I buy books. And if I have anything else, I buy food and clothing.
That was a famous quote from what's that? Well, that's Richard's motto, but it's also was Erasmus's motto. Erasmus is an important figure in biblical history. He was the one who produced the Greek manuscript, which would later give rise to what was known as the Textus Receptus.
The Textus Receptus was the foundation for the King James Bible. So Desiderius Erasmus does have a very important place in church history. However, Erasmus was most famous, at least among reformed people.
Erasmus is most famous for his debate with Martin Luther. Erasmus believed in the autonomy of the human will. And Luther believed in the bondage of the human will. And the two debated. And that is that debate is now found in the book entitled The Bondage of the Will.
It's interesting that the debate between Erasmus and Luther was similar to the debate which had taken place between Pelagius and Augustine some thousand years prior. The issue at hand is the will of man.
And how has the will of man been affected by the fall? And so the issue of Arminianism is really just a revival of this thousand year old issue. You'd think the issue by this time had been put to bed.
Augustine had masterfully debunked Pelagianism. The Council of Orange had come along and debunked semi Pelagianism. Martin Luther had slam dunked Erasmus, if you ask my opinion. And yet there was still a debate going on.
And Arminianism was the revival of that debate. Having given up his reformed theology, Arminius set out to develop and teach a new theology. And he began to garner a pretty significant following. Arminius died in 1609, but his theology would live on.
And following his death, one of his students published an article or a writing called the Remonstrance Against the Reformed Churches. The word remonstrance means protest. It was a protest against reformed theology.
And in 1610, in 1610, the remonstrance, remember the remonstrance are the followers of Arminius's teachings. In 1610, the remonstrance developed a new theology and they developed. Well, they took the teachings of Arminius and developed a new outline for their theology.
I've given you the outline in your sheet, I believe, haven't I? In your notes, five points of Arminianism, five points of the remonstrance there. These are the five points of remonstrance or Arminian theology.
Number one, human ability. This is what the remonstrance taught. Man has the ability by his own free will to choose or not choose to cooperate with God's free grace. That's the Arminian position on the will of man, that man's will is free and he has the ability to choose or not choose to cooperate with God's free gift of grace.
Number two, conditional election. God chooses based on the condition of foreseen faith. God looked down the corridor of time, saw what you were going to do, and because He saw that you were better than others, that you were smart enough and wise enough and have the spiritual sensitivity enough to choose Him versus someone else, then He chose you.
So we're going to talk about these later, but obviously I have issues with all five of them. But that's the second one. God chooses according to our choice. And that's that's the second point. The third, universal atonement.
Universal atonement is that the death of Christ was made, the death of Christ made atonement for all people, but it was not effective unless a person exercised faith. Now, it is important to recognize that Arminians are not universalists.
They do not believe that everyone goes to heaven. However, they are inconsistent at this point because they believe that the atonement was made for everyone. But yet there are people who still go to hell.
This is one of the greatest inconsistencies in Arminianism that I have been able to see as I have studied. Because if you believe that Christ has paid for the sins of all, but yet there are people who still go to hell, either they're paying double for their sins or they're going to go to heaven.
And thus you believe in universalism. So there is a problem with the idea of universal atonement. And we're going to talk about it more later. But that's the third point of Arminianism. Number four, resistible grace.
Basically, that just says that God's grace can be ultimately resisted and rejected. Finally, number five, falling from grace. Falling from grace is the teaching that a person who comes to faith can be saved and yet later reject their faith and fall away and be lost.
So it's the old yo-yo situation. You can be saved and then be lost again. And of course, many of us probably know people who believe that it's very popular teaching in Pentecostal churches today. Even though I wouldn't say that Pentecostals are Arminian, I would say that Pentecostals are errant in a lot of areas of theology.
But specifically to call them Arminian would be a little bit unfair to Arminius. So I just want to kind of throw that out there, because a lot of people say you're either you're either a Reformed or you're Arminian.
You're either Calvinist or you're Arminian. That's really not true. There are other you can there are Wesleyans that are different. Wesleyan is a form of Arminianism. But it is it is there are variations.
You could Pentecostalism is its own sort of form of theology. But if you if you if you really want to boil it down, you're either an Augustinian or Pelagian because you really believe that man has the ability to do something.
Or man doesn't. That's it's really where the the breach comes. It came long before Calvin and Arminius. But be that as it may, I do want to make two points about Arminius, because I think it's fair to be fair to people, even people with whom you disagree.
So I want to be fair to Arminius. I disagree with him on his points, but I also want to be fair and say these five points were not written by him. Arminius held, I would say, I guess the word is is is fluctuating views on some of these issues.
He was not as stern on the issue of free will. In fact, Arminius's position on the freedom of the will was that the will was bound by sin, but that God had given a blanket grace, sometimes called prevenient grace.
That's the word that's used in the Methodist church. They talk about prevenient grace. That, yes, all people are sinners and all people are bound in their sin. But God gives this blanket grace that frees everyone just enough to where they have the ability to exercise free will.
I want to read to you from Arminius himself. As I said, I like to be fair. This is from Arminius himself. God decreed to save and damn certain particular persons. This decree has its foundation in the foreknowledge of God, by which he knew from all eternity those of individuals who would through his preventing grace.
That's his word instead of prevenient. He said his preventing grace believe and through his subsequent great grace would persevere by which foreknowledge he likewise knew those who would not believe and persevere, end quote.
So he's saying there that, yes, men can't come on their own. But God has given a preventing grace, a prevenient grace that has blanketed the earth and has allowed all men to at least be able to exercise just enough free will to be able to do it and to be able to come.
So that is the view of Arminius from his own words. He also did not hold to the position that a person once saved could necessarily fall away. Those people who say Arminius believed that you could fall from your grace, not necessarily.
Arminius was very conflicted on that particular issue. His students. No, not his students became very firm in their position that you could fall from grace. But Arminius's position was much more relaxed.
And I'll read it to you again from what it says. This is actually actually this is from the canons, the articles of the remonstrance. So this is this is the students as well. But it kind of gives sort of a wishy washy answer.
It says whether they are capable through negligence of forsaking again the first beginning of their life in Christ, of again returning to the present evil world, of turning away from the holy doctrine which was delivered them, of losing a good conscience, of becoming devoid of grace.
That must be more particularly determined out of the Holy Scripture before we ourselves can teach it with the full persuasion of our mind, end quote. So basically they're saying, we don't know yet. We got to keep looking.
We don't know if you can fall from grace. Watch out because it might be possible. You know, they're giving the it could be its potential, but we don't know for sure. So it was these five teachings which the synod convened to deal with.
This was a time in history when theological positions were important and could lead to not only unrest in the church, but also unrest in politics and unrest in society in general. This was a time when theology mattered.
As a result, an international synod was called to deal with this issue. Could you imagine today? Could you imagine today that we called Congress together to deal with the issue of the doctrines of grace?
Now, it's a much different time. It's obviously a much different time. This is a time in which theology and politics and life were all interwoven. And thus, it was something that was worthy of international attention.
The synod had members representing reform groups from continental Europe, the British Isles, Scotland, Church of England, all sent representatives. Fourteen members of the remonstrance, the group that was being considered, 14 members of the remonstrance were also summoned to act as defendants in the case.
They were allowed to come and present their case. It wasn't as if the synod just said, OK, we're going to we're going to come over here and decide. You guys will let you know how it turns out. They were allowed to come and defend themselves.
In fact, there is much written about the things that were said during the synod and things that you can go and read and research if you are so interested. But tonight, what I want to talk about is the conclusions of the synod.
So let's look there now at the conclusions. We know the reason for coming together. Arminianism had had had come up. The remonstrance are teaching their their doctrines and the church has to deal with it.
The synod officially condemned the remonstrance teachings as being opposed to Scripture and heretical. As a result, the synod responded with a series of canons of its own. It responded to the five points of the remonstrance with five points of its own.
Those five points would be what would later become called the doctrines of grace. The canons of Dort, as they are known, demonstrate a pastoral response in regard to the issues raised by the remonstrance, a pastoral response.
What I mean by pastoral. Well, you you think about the subject matter and you think about all that's happening, you've got this this international synod that's being convened to deal with a very serious issue and they come and they condemn this false teaching.
You would think that their writing would be very harsh and vindictive. But yet the men of the synod who came together to answer these charges. Came with what can only be described as ministerial hearts, they wanted to lovingly and properly guide the church back into.
Right, teaching, I want to just read to you from the first three articles of the first head of doctrine, the first head of doctrine is divine election and reprobation, and this is the first three. I just want you to hear the pastoral heart that sort of exudes from these.
I was I have to be honest, the first time I read, I was surprised. How it expressed itself, and I just want you to hear this article one, as all men have sinned and Adam lie under the curse and are deserving of eternal death, God would have done no injustice by leaving them all to perish and delivering them over to condemnation on account of sin.
According to the words of the apostle, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God and for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and for the wages of sin is death.
Article two, but in this the love of God was manifested that he sent his only begotten son into the world, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Article three, and that men may be brought to believe God mercifully sends the messengers of these most joyful tidings to whom he will.
And at what time he pleases by those by whose ministry men are called to repentance and faith in Christ crucified, how then shall they call in him whom they have not believed and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher and how shall they preach except they are sent? End quote, you hear that it's mostly scripture and it's an exposition of scripture and it goes on and it's very powerful throughout.
But I just love the opening. One of the things that I've been challenged on over the years of being a reformed pastor, being a reformed teacher, people say, well, what do you do with John 316? I believe it.
Well, you believe in election and predestination. I believe John 316. I think you misunderstand it. I think that you have misunderstood it because you. Are challenging me on it, and if you understood it as you ought, you would not be.
These men understood it and they included it in the very first portion of the articles in these articles is seen an attempt to demonstrate the whole counsel of God on the issues at hand and to not minimize them to sound bites.
I put in your notes the five canons of Dort. Each one has several articles, too many for us to be able to read tonight. But I just want you to look at the five heads of doctrine. The five heads of doctrine from the canon of Dort, the first divine election and reprobation, the second the death of Christ and the redemption of men thereby.
Third and fourth, the corruption of man, his conversion to God and the manner thereof. And fifth, the perseverance of the saints. Now, I understand what you're thinking. That doesn't spell tulip. We'll get to Tulip in a minute.
That is how it was put together by the Senate of Dort. Westminster Seminary in California put out a statement which I thought was very important in regard to the Senate of Dort. It said this, and I quote, The five canons of the Senate of Dort are the crown jewel of reformed theology.
And I thought that was an interesting thought. Scott Clark goes on to say this. The canons of Dort represent a remarkable consensus of conviction among the reformed churches on essential doctrines. Indeed, the very reformation was at stake.
If God's favor is conditioned upon anything in us, then we are lost because we are dead in sin. If the gospel is reconfigured to include our obedience, then it is no longer the gospel. If atonement is merely hypothetical, if the elect can fall away, then grace is no longer grace.
End quote, as I said, I wish time would allow us to read through all of the articles, but it does not. So I would encourage you to spend some time searching them out for yourself. But over the years, they have been distilled and.
We are now going to turn our attention to the distillation of the five points of the Senate of Dort or the canons of Dort. The distillation of the Senate of Dort is found in what we call the tulip. Allow me to make some room because I'm sure I'm going to be doing some writing at this point.
Most people who are initially introduced to the canons of Dort are introduced to them by the acronym TULIP. And the acronym TULIP is on your sheet on the back. So if you want to turn your sheet over, I do want to make mention that this acronym is actually relatively new.
We say relatively. The very first time we see the term five points of Calvinism was as early as 1878 and R .L. Dabney's book of that title. But Dabney didn't use TULIP. Dabney's five points were total depravity, effectual calling, God's election, particular redemption and perseverance of the saints.
But that makes a tag so that doesn't work. It doesn't make a good acronym. So it didn't catch on. It was actually it was used. The TULIP was used in 1905 by Reverend Cleland Boyd McCaffey in a lecture before the Presbyterian Union.
And it was popularized by Lorraine Bettner in his book, The Reform Doctrine of Predestination, published in 1932. So if you figure TULIP as a popular acronym is less than 100 years old. So if you were to go to John Calvin, I know he's dead, but in your mind, go to John Calvin and say, John, what do you think about the TULIP?
He wouldn't have any idea what you're talking about. He'd probably look at you. Well, I think it's a pretty flower. I don't know. Unless you spoke French or one of these other languages, you probably would talk to him anyway.
But but when people talk about Calvin's TULIP, it's a little bit anachronistic. We're sort of reading something back into history that's not true. The TULIP is less than 100 years old. The canons of Dort came well after his death.
But because the world calls it the five points of Calvinism, we need not be afraid and we need to understand what that means so that we can respond to it. But when we talk about the TULIP, the TULIP is obviously five points of doctrine.
The TULIP stands for total depravity, which these are on your list, so I don't need to necessarily write them down for you. Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints.
Now, what do those mean? By the way, this is not a this is not something I got out of a book somewhere. I sat down and wrote these out. I read them to my wife, wrote them again, read them again and and kept going back to say, how could I best explain this on one sheet of paper?
It's hard. And the problem is in our world, people are people are really bad about thinking deeply, number one, and people are really bad about hearing more than just a soundbite. So I want you to tonight know that there's much more to this than what's on this sheet of paper.
But I was trying in best way I knew how in the best way I knew how to put it in such a way that you could learn these things and be able to talk to people if they ask you questions. That's what this is for.
And it also assumes the questions. So let's look at the first one, total depravity. Man is dead in sin and unable to do anything good toward God outside of regeneration. My wife told me that I should add Bible verses to these.
I put at the bottom that all of these can be proven from my perspective, I believe all of them can be proven from John six from the words of Christ. But if you want some other Bible verses, there you go.
A total depravity, I would say. Romans, chapter three. Verses nine. Through 13, Romans, chapter eight, verses seven and eight. John six, forty four. John six, sixty five or others, I'm just I didn't write these down, so I'm just giving you if somebody asked me to teach me about total depravity.
I would go there. Man is dead in sin and unable to do anything good towards God outside of regeneration. That is what we teach. That is what the Bible teaches. The objection to that is this. This is the objection.
Man is able to come to Jesus because God gives him that ability. However, this does not mean that he will. It ultimately is his free will, which will be the deciding factor in the end. It is man who determines if he will be saved and not God.
That's the objection. And that's the foundation of the Armenian objection. Ultimately, the person who decides who will and who will not be saved is man, because it is man who must act on his free will to make the decision.
Here is my response, and I have it written for you. In essence, that would mean that if one person comes and another does not, then the person who comes has something better within himself spiritually than the other.
Basically, it is salvation by merit. Let me just paint a picture for you, maybe make it, maybe bring it down a little. Mike and I are sitting in church together. We're both as lost as a goose. OK, we have both lived lives that are basically the same reprobate lives.
We both come in the same night to the same church. We hear the same gospel presentation. Mike stands up and says, I believe what has been said and I receive Christ as my savior and I want to follow after him in baptism and repentance.
I say that's nonsense and I refuse to believe it. The question that comes must be the question that is answered. Is that because Mike or maybe I'll turn it around, I'll be the one who got saved. Is that because I am smarter, more spiritually sensitive, more pliable in my heart than Mike?
And if so, where did the pliability, where did the spiritual sensitivity, where did the goodness that caused me to come that he didn't have come from within me? Did the goodness come from in me? Well, then you're all reformed theologians.
If you if you if you will say to yourself, no, it didn't come within me. It was the grace of God. What do we always say when we see the person in the gutter? But by the grace of God, let me finish it.
There go I. Right. Why do we say that? Because it is all of grace. I'll tell you this. I hear people say all the time. Well, I'm a four point. I'm a four pointer. I believe in total privacy, unconditional action, irresistible grace and perseverance.
But I don't like limited atonement. If you don't like limited atonement, if you don't like any one of these points, then the system itself collapses because it's all it's all predicated on one thing, the absolute, utter inability of man.
By the way, I'm going to be preaching on this Sunday because we're joining the Fellowship of Reformed Independent Independent Reform, whichever the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals. I'm going to talk about what it means to be a reformed evangelical.
It honestly means that you have a right understanding of man. You have a right understanding of man's condition. It begins with that. What's that? And God's sovereignty. Yes, yes. And that's part of it.
There's four. I'm going to give four points on Sunday. But that the one of the ones is the man's inability, his utter inability. If you want to write something under next to total poverty, right, total inability, because that's what we're saying now.
Number two, unconditional election, unconditional election. God has elected from eternity all who will be given the grace of regeneration. People don't like the word elect, but what does the word elect mean?
What does it mean to elect? We elect representatives. What does it mean? Is it? Yes. Means to choose throughout the Bible, throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. The word elect is used to describe the people of God over and over and over.
Paul says, I suffer all things for the sake of the elect. He said, who will bring a charge against God's elect? Right. All these things. This word is used over and over and over again to describe a person who is saved.
Why is it used to describe a person who is saved? Because a person who is saved has been chosen by God. We call it unconditional election because the reason God chooses is not within you. It is within him.
The unconditional aspect is that we have nothing better. There's nothing better in me than is in Mike that would cause God to choose me. And you want a Bible verse for this? I'll actually read it to you.
Romans chapter nine, the Achilles heel of the Arminian in Romans chapter nine. So clearly enunciated is God's election that you would have to you have to stumble through this and stumble over it to avoid it.
Paul is talking about God's sovereign choice of individuals. And he's talking about the fact that the Israelites, not all of them are saved. We all know that, right? That not all Jews are saved just because they're Jews.
And he's talking about that. And he's saying, now, now, here's the thing. If not all Israel is saved, that means God's word is not true because he said Israel is his people. This is Paul's answer to that question.
Romans nine, verse six. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. It's not that God's word has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. Israel, of course, was Jacob.
Not all that are descendant of Jacob are of Jacob and not all who are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. Abraham had many children. Abraham had who?
Abraham had his adopted son, Eleazar of Damascus. Then he had Ishmael with his his wife's handmaiden. And then he had Isaac. And then after Sarah died, he had a second wife, Keturah, with which he had many children.
So we don't know how many children he had, but we know this only one was chosen by God because it says right here. It says, and not all the children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
God chose Isaac. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said about this next year.
I will return and Sarah will have a son. And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election.
There's that word God's purpose of election might stand not because of works, but because of his call. She was told the older will serve the younger as it is written. Jacob, I have loved and Esau, I have hated.
There's the passage. He said there was two children. They were in the womb. They were as close to being equal as any two could ever have been. God chose one. He did not choose the other, and he chose them before either one had had the opportunity to do anything good or bad.
Why? The Bible tells us to demonstrate his purpose in election. We might not like it, but it is what the Bible says. And it goes on to say this. What shall we say, then, is there injustice with God by no means?
For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion so that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy for the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose.
I've raised you up that I might show my power in you, that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills. Beloved, that is a sovereign God and that sovereign election.
And it's so clearly expressed in this passage that you literally have to either avoid it, go under it, go over it, go around it. You can't go through it and not remain convinced. And it goes on. Paul knows this is a hard point, and he keeps anticipating the objection.
He says, because you will say to me, then, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will? This is the person who says, well, if God does that, then why am I even being judged? It wasn't my fault.
I did anything wrong. It's God's fault. He's in charge. That's the answer. It's the answer Paul gives. And I love his answer. But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed him, why have you made me this way?
Who are you? Who do you think you are to ask God, why have you done it this way? That's powerful stuff. That's that is that's powerful. And that's the answer. Somebody says, I don't like the way God does it.
Who do you think you are? Who in the world do you think you are to answer back to the creator of this universe and say you should have did it a different way? I don't like the way you did it. Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?
That's that's that there's my there's a passage on election. There are others. But, you know, when somebody says I don't believe in election, I say, well, Giddy up. Come on. The argument from the Armenian about that particular passage, I want I might as well say it.
Put this on recording in case somebody ever asks the argument about this passage. They'll say this. That passage isn't talking about salvation, it's talking about national blessing. God chooses Israel nationally to give them blessing, but it's not talking about individual salvation.
OK, goes down further. It says. I'll just start where we were, but who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Well, what is molded say to its motor? Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory?
Even us, whom he has called not from among the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. He's talking about elected individuals. He's not talking about elect nations, because if he was talking about elect nations, you can't elect the nation out of a nation.
He said he has elected us from among the Jews and the Gentiles. The elect are the individuals who have been chosen by God, not nations. Just throw that out there. That may not affect you much, but somebody was going to ask that question while listening to this.
So so I wanted to make sure I put that on the recording. All right. So that's unconditional election. Let's let's look at the objections. The objection is this. God elects, having foreseen that a person will believe by his own free will.
That's that's the argument. Well, God elects, but he elects because he saw that I would believe. Here's the problem. And this is my response to that objection. If that is true, if what you are saying is true, then you must deny total depravity because God is seeing a person do something.
That is impossible if total depravity is true. If total depravity is true, you can't believe outside of God's grace. And yet you believe God saw you do something before he did something. So God saw you do something that's impossible.
This is why I said it all kind of hinges on total depravity. To give up total depravity, you give up everything because total depravity is the foundation of it all. The right understanding of man leads to a right understanding of everything else in this system.
Like you said, the sovereignty of God is the foundation. In fact, I've heard one guy, he said, really, there's six points. And the one is the soil out of which the tulip grows, the soil, the S is sovereignty.
So if you want to add that S at the bottom, that's fine. Sovereignty of God. All right. I hope I'm not running away from you guys. I hope I hope you're able to you're hanging with what I'm saying. This is heavy stuff, man.
This is good stuff. Let's move on to the limited atonement. Limited atonement. This is the one. This is the one that this is the one that so many people, boy, do they have problems with this one. Limited atonement, limited atonement.
Jesus Christ suffered for the sins of the elect and satisfied the wrath of God for them fully on the cross. That is limited atonement in the sense of that's the what we what we believe. Now, you might say, well, what's the problem with that?
Why would anybody have any problem with that? Well, this is the one that most people have the biggest problem with, because when we say limited atonement, we say Jesus Christ suffered for the sins of the elect only.
So maybe that should have been the word that I put in there. Maybe that would have made it a little stronger because the argument is, no, Jesus Christ paid for the sins of all men everywhere. And here's my response to that.
And I realize there are passages of scripture that talk about the world and Jesus dying for the world. But what we must understand before I go into the objections in response, before we what we must understand is the word all in the word world throughout scripture has various meanings.
And it always is meant within a context. All means all without exception, not all without distinction. For instance, I'm sorry, means all without distinction, not all without exception. If I said, for instance, all Jacksonville turned out to see the Jaguars play, that never happened.
Let me come up with something better. All Jacksonville turned out for country fest last week. Does that mean all without distinction or all without exception? What's all about distinction? It means all people from every area.
Revelation chapter five says that Jesus, this is one good verse. If you want a verse for limited atonement, I like Revelation five. Turn there and I'll I'll read it to you. Revelation five, verse nine, this is talking about Jesus says, and they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God. And they shall reign on Earth. So right there, it says in the text, and you ransomed people for God from every tribe and tongue and nation. Who did Jesus ransom?
Jesus ransomed people from every tribe, tongue and nation, not every single individual, because if Christ's atonement paid for the sins of every single individual, then every single individual would be in heaven and hell itself would be purposeless.
That's what the universalists teach. The universalists teach that because Jesus's blood paid for everyone, that Jesus's blood ensured that no one is ultimately going to go to hell. The universalist church teaches that no one goes to hell and they use the same verses that the Armenian does to try to prove universal atonement.
Words world and all and those things like that, and they throw them in there and they try to make this same point and they miss the boat. The atonement of Christ was made specifically for those who would believe.
Who can argue with that? But people do. Now I want to show you one other passage before we move on. I'm actually going to give a little bit more of an exposition of this on Sunday, but at least you can write it down.
Hebrews chapter 10, verses 8 through 10. When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to the law.
Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will. He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
We have been sanctified through the body of Christ once for all. That phrase once for all is hugely important because it goes on to say in verse 11. And every priest stands daily at the service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God waiting for the time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet for a single offering.
He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Who has Jesus perfected? According to that verse, those who are being sanctified, who are those who are being sanctified? The elect, the ones who have come to faith in Christ, that's who he's perfected.
That's where the perfect atonement was made for them. I remember one time and I love to tell this story and I hope you all indulge me for an additional few minutes tonight. But I have to tell you this story and then we'll move on.
One night I was or one day I was in Lifeway Christian stores buying a gift for someone. And I don't remember who the gift was for, but I remember that I had to. I was also buying a book. The book was called The Five Points of Calvinism.
Just wanted to get I was still in seminary. I just want to get it, read it. And I gave the lady my other book to wrap. So I'm standing back and I'm just kind of leafing through the book. And this older gentleman who I knew was a pastor because he had a pastor's haircut.
I don't know. They're just any I don't have a perfect haircut, but a lot of them do. And you kind of know they got that helmet going on. And he kind of sidled up next to me and I'm and I'm dressed as I normally dress.
That ain't like this. I'm normally, you know, shorts and a T-shirt and, you know, kind of relaxed. So I don't look pastoral at all. So he sidles up next to me and he he kind of and I'm praying. Nobody can pray as fast as me because I pray fast.
And in this moment, I prayed, Lord, don't let him talk to me because I just knew he wanted to talk. And I did not want to talk. I didn't want to debate. I didn't want to stand at Lifeway cash register and debate reform theology with some guy.
I don't know. But he saddles up to me and he says, so what you're reading? I knew it. I knew he spoke. And so I turned it and I kind of just I kind of I didn't say that. I just kind of showed it to him.
And he said, so what do you think of that? And at that point, I'll be honest with you, at that point, I was still new to reform theology. I was learning. I was buying the book because I'd never read it.
And I was in seminary at the time, and I just happened to be taking a class on the Protestant Reformation. So I had a good excuse. I don't have to talk to him, I just tell him, I mean, I'm in I'm in school and this is what we're studying.
But I knew enough. I knew enough to knew the next thing he said was wrong because he said, oh, because I said, yeah, I'm in school, I'm studying this. And yeah, and he goes, oh, well, you want to know what I don't like about it now?
He said, I don't like that limited atonement. So I turned to him and I said, because we hadn't even been introduced. I said, sir, do you believe in hell? And he stopped and looked at me and he said, well, of course I believe in hell.
I said, then you in some way believe that the atonement of Christ did not apply to those people who are suffering for their sins in hell. Right. And he stopped and looked at me and he said, well, I believe everybody gets a choice.
I said, then really the problem that you have is with the you. It's the unconditional election. I said, you don't even understand what you're talking about. He left, but he didn't he didn't even understand the problem that he had because his biggest problem was with the you people who call themselves four pointers and they leave out the L do so in ignorance because they really don't believe the you or the T.
So we'll move to irresistible grace. Yeah, I don't think I made his Christmas list that year, but I just I had to get him to stop. All right. The eye is irresistible grace. The irresistible grace is this.
The Holy Spirit effectively calls to the cause, the elect to salvation by giving them spiritual life in order that they will believe. That's yeah, that's that's pretty much it. John 637 is the passage I would use.
All the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. That's actually the same verse I would use for the perseverance of the saints to I would just put those both together.
John six and thirty seven. Here's the argument it's often made. Well, the Bible clearly says that we can resist God's grace and we do resist God's grace. Acts chapter seven, Stephen said, you are stiff necked people and you're constantly resisting the grace of God.
Here's the answer. The response to that objection is simple. In essence, this is saying that men have the ability to thwart God's will. All men resist God's goodness and grace, but that does not deny the point of irresistible grace.
What this point insists is that when God regenerates a soul, man will not resist coming to him in faith, as that is the natural response of being born again. You are dead in your sins. God gives you new life.
You're going to stay in the casket. No, you're going to come out. Lazarus didn't lay in the tomb and go, I'm not ready, Jesus. Jesus said, Lazarus, come out. And what happened? He came. We are dead in our trespasses and sins.
We hear the gospel and the Holy Spirit gives life to our heart. And what is the result of a living as the prophet said, when God takes out the heart of stone, he puts in a heart of flesh. What happens?
We repent and believe the gospel. It's the result of God changing our heart. I've talked to so many people who are Arminians, but yet when they tell their conversion story, man, I was going the wrong way.
I was going down through life. I was the things are going bad and down and down and down. And I heard the gospel and something in my heart changed and I believed it. And I'm like, you're you're a Calvinist.
You're a reformed theologian. You you just don't know it. Everybody prays like a reformed guy, too. I'm sorry, I'm getting excited. Everybody prays this way. God save my son. God save my daughter. God save my dad or my mom or my cousin.
Nobody says, God, I know you're doing your best. Oh, his free will makes a good choice. Nobody prays that way. Pray, God, open his heart, break his legs so he'll bow the knee to Jesus. That's the way we pray because we we believe right.
We just act wrong. Sorry, I'm excited. All right. Perseverance of the saints, perseverance of the saints is this, the person who is regenerated will persevere in his faith and will not fall away because the grace of God which preserves him.
Now, I want to make a quick note. I already said John six thirty seven also applies there. As I said, I think I can prove all of these points from John six alone. But John six thirty seven, all the father gives me will come to me.
That's irresistible grace. And the one who comes to me, I will never cast out. That's perseverance of the saints. It's just those two together in one verse. The context of that, by the way, in case you're wondering what the context of John six is, Jesus had just fed the five thousand.
He had gone across the sea to Capernaum where he was preaching and everybody followed after him because they wanted to eat again. Hey, man, he fed us yesterday. He's going to feed us again. I'll follow you anywhere, man.
You got good bread and fish every day. Jesus looks at him and he tells him, you don't believe. And you got to be thinking these people must say, this guy's crazy. He's saying we don't believe we're following him.
And Jesus said, no, you follow me because your bellies are full. You follow me because your bellies are full. But the one who comes to me will come because God has given him to me. All the father gives me will come to me.
And he says later in verse forty four, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. And then he reiterates that in verse sixty five, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me grants it to him.
Same chapter, same context, and you know what it says after the sermon? It says that many turned away from him that day and were angry and stopped following him. Jesus teaches reformed theology and everybody runs.
But that's what happened, it said, and many turned away that day, upset by what he had taught them. Sad, sad. All right. Perseverance of the saints. Here is the the objection that often comes. They say man can not only reject God's grace, but man also has the ability to leave the faith at any time and thus reject salvation and lose his eternal life.
Now, remember, this is not necessarily what the remonstrance taught. This is not what Arminius taught, but this is what is classically taught today as Arminianism, that you can lose your salvation. OK, now there is a doctrine in the Baptist church called eternal security.
How many of you have ever heard that phrase eternal security? Now, if you've ever been to a Baptist church, you've heard that. It also goes by what I call OSAS. That's one thing that we say that OSAS once saved, always saved.
All right. That doctrine. Here's the thing that kills me. Southern Baptists were birthed out of reformed theology. That is not something I say as an opinion, by the way. In a few weeks, when we when I get ready to take a little break, Aaron is going to come in at the last part of the series.
He's going to teach a couple of weeks on history from the American side of it and how the different things that have happened here. Just a little addition to this. Give me a little bit of a break. And one of the things that he's going to show in this.
It's how the the Baptists, the Southern Baptists, how many of you ever heard of Broadman Publishing? Who is Broadman Publishing, Richard? John Broadus and Basil Manley. John Broadus and Basil Manley were two reformed Baptist theologians.
You ever heard of James Pettigrew Boyce, one of the founding fathers of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary? He penned or at least helped pen the abstract of principles, which is something we're studying in a couple of weeks in here.
Fully reformed document. We're going to show the reformed document. And guess, James Pettigrew Boyce, founder, one of the founders, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, committed reformed theologian.
The modern Southern Baptist Church has gone through a major change as a result of liberalism and then trying to go back to conservatism. But in the trying to go back to conservatism, what happened was a loss of the reformed theology.
Because so much liberalism had come in, and if you know what an American Baptist is, you know what liberal Baptists are. The American Baptist Church is very liberal. The liberalism had come in. So back in the 60s and 70s, I think, if I remember this correctly, guys like Adrian Rogers and that not reformed, but good, solid guys.
As far as Arminianism goes, there are good guys who I would disagree with, but they came in and fought hard for things like the inerrancy of scripture and stuff like that. And as a result, the new Southern Baptist Church, when I say new, the modern Southern Baptist Church is typically very Arminian.
Because it had that time of liberalism that came in. But here's the thing. They still hold to this. Do you know why they still hold to that? Well, because it's true. But you know why they still hold to that?
But why is it true? If everything else about reformed theology is false, this cannot be true. And I will argue this to the teeth. If you are the one responsible for bringing yourself to Christ, you certainly have the power to bring yourself out.
And thus, they have no reason to hold to that. They'll argue they do. They'll argue to the teeth. But the only reason that that doctrine remains a part. Of Southern Baptist theology today. Is because it is the distillation of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.
And by the way, this is different than the perseverance of the saints. And I'll tell you how. Eternal security has created one of the biggest problems in the church. This is the problem that eternal security has brought.
Sinful conversion. That's what I was going to say. Guys who say, all you got to do is accept Jesus, say the words, be baptized, and then you're saved forever. You got your heavenly ticket punched and you get to go to heaven.
No matter what happens afterward, you're eternally secure. I've heard guys preach that. I heard a guy one night on the radio. I had to stop and get a breath because this guy was preaching. On the radio had the audacity to say, except Jesus, because even if you decide you don't like him, you've still got him.
What nonsense is that? But it was a very popular and very local Southern Baptist preacher who said it. So let me say this. The perseverance of the saints is not the same as eternal security, though one does come from the other.
The reason why we are eternally secure. The reason why we are saved once and once only is because God changes our heart and he maintains the grace which keeps us in the faith so that we are those who persevere to the end.
As Jesus said, he who perseveres to the end shall be saved. Somebody asked me sometime, well, what about a guy who believed on Jesus and then he quit believing on Jesus? The answer is found in first John.
They went out from among us because they were never of us. For had they been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out from us to demonstrate that they were never of us. The person who departs from the faith was never a part of the faith.
Now, that is not to say that there are not times where men backslide. And there are true men of God who have had times where they have where they have wandered and God has, as with the prodigal son, brought them back into the fold.
But the man who departs from the faith and apostatizes and rejects Jesus is a man who was never saved to begin with. All right. As I want to finish this, the response to the objection, because they say man can reject God's grace.
Here's my response to the objection. If that were true, that makes man sovereign and not God, for he has not only the power to come to Christ, but he also has the power to leave at any time. Such an ability would deny any sense at all for God to use the word predestined.
How could God predestine anyone whose power to come and power to leave is theirs and not his? So it makes no sense for him to use the word predestined at all. All right, my friends. Well, that was a fairly long lesson.
Let me just let me just end by saying this and then I'll give you an opportunity if you do have a question. Let me end by saying this. The complexity of the canons of Dort cannot be properly distilled down to a short acronym.
I have rushed tonight to give you as best I can an outline of what we teach on this subject. But the problem is it wasn't enough. We could spend hours on each of these points and deal with them at length, but we just do not have the time in this series.
But what we need to understand is this. We need to understand that this teaching about the nature of man and the nature of God and salvation is the bedrock of our understanding of the Bible. And sadly, reformed theology is the minority report today.
But the tide is changing. More and more people are starting to read their Bibles. And just as in the Protestant Reformation, so to today, more and more people are becoming convinced of these doctrines because they are so clearly biblical.
Next week, we're going to look at the great denominational explosion. All of the denominations and where they came from. Obviously, we won't be able to look at all of them, but we're going to look at the major denominations and where they came from and why they are important.
And our understanding of church history. So does anyone have anything? We are way over time. And I know some folks have to get going. Does anybody have anything they would like to ask before we close in prayer?
Yes, sure. Sure. Yeah, Jonah tried. Took the first submarine ride. That's absolutely. I've never understood that exactly. I mean, so if a person is saved, the first appearance of the same, so a person is saved and then they go 180 the other way.
I just don't understand how they can still be saved, I guess. No, they're not.
Now, I would say that they don't reject Jesus.
They still say Jesus was the son of God.
Now, I think that the following after Christ is more than simply words. And I would say that a person who rejects Christ in their life. For instance, there was a guy I told this story last night. Remember the guy who used to find the girls on Facebook that he could have relations with?
And what did he do? He would go to leave his house and say, I'm going to sin so that grace can abound. Yeah, that guy ain't saved. And he's demonstrating his lack of faithfulness to Christ by what he's doing.
This is this goes along with what James two says, saying what you know, what we say has to has to also be reflected in what we do. Absolutely. Yes. Thanks. Sure. Absolutely.
The freedom of the will. There is free will all the time. But the point is, it is dependent upon the nature of the man. And so, you know, well, yes, very well.
Absolutely. And just to reiterate what you're saying, we have the reformed theologian does not deny that man has moral agency or what we call an ability to make choices. And even that those choices are essentially free in the sense that they come from him.
But what we believe is that his choices are always bound by his condition or his nature. We are. Enslaved to sin before God frees us, and only until God frees us will we choose to follow him. So, yes, we have the ability to make choices according to our nature, but our nature is bound to sin.
I'm going to talk about that on Sunday as well. Yes. We have to cooperate also with the spirit of God. Oh, in our sanctification, sanctification is a cooperative act. Salvation is not. Sanctification is my conformity to the image of Christ by which the Holy Spirit is within me, leading me to conform to Christ.
And just like we talked about in our men's meeting last night about those branches that hang out there. And we talked about removing the branches which hang negativity. You know, we talked about that.
And and I said, you know what? That's a lifetime struggle. Sanctification is a lifetime of being conformed to the image of Christ. OK, so I guess it's just the words. It's just saying what's that if a person says, look, I believe in Jesus Christ, but they never become sanctified or start working towards sanctification.
Yes. A person who says, I believe in Jesus Christ, that their life is not conformed or being conformed to him is not saved. Absolutely. This is why the the whole new system where a person just raises their hand and there's this whole new evangelism thing where people go out and they say, just say this prayer.
That's all you got to do. You live just the way you live before. Don't make any changes. Just say this prayer so that I can send it into the convention and let them know we got one more baptism. Not trying to be harsh against my Southern Baptist brethren.
I love them. I love their history and I love many men in the church. But there is a problem with that theology. Because this is the point of sanctification entirely. Just respond positively one time and that's it.
Yeah. All right, guys. Obviously, we could go on forever. Let's have a word of prayer. Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you for your truth. Please be with us tonight as we leave this place and keep us safe.
In Jesus name. Amen.